Anastasia Rosen-Jones (formally Marcia E. Rosen), New Horizons Small “Zones Of Peace” Project Executive Director and Founder.
A personal and professional blog exploring the vision behind the New
Horizons ZOP and how it reflects my journey from blindness to recovery.

Finding Light in the Darkness

Anastasia Rosen-Jones

Anastasia Rosen-Jones (formerly Marcia E. Rosen) is a retired psychotherapist with more than thirty-five years in the mental health field. Now a community development and violence prevention coach, consultant and trainer, she is the author of five books in progress, including "The Middle East Crisis In My Backyard" and numerous articles.

Anastasia makes her home in the mountains above Harpers Ferry where she is happily nested with the birds, the trees and the squirrels. She is at her most fulfilled watching the sunset from the deck of her home -- and/or -- sitting around a campfire in the woods telling and listening to stories.

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Friday, December 19, 2014

The Convict In Me: Part I

Having boldly proclaimed -- in my "Bill Cosby's Wife Sez" article -- that there is an inherent wisdom in
knowing one’s inner convict-self, especially for us women, it stands to reason
I must, now, come clean on the issue myself.

But didn’t I immediately after asserting myself on this item
find myself spontaneously immersed in the effort?

You bet I did!

But it has been a long, long time since I looked carefully
at the manuscript material of my three unpublished Random House books, still
sitting in files – and – in piles. Since the very day I lost my eyesight, Labor
Day weekend, 1998.

So it doesn’t come easily; to go back, look at it all and
reconstruct the “Me” I used to be.

Originally, when I wrote my first book, I was just learning
to write for the readers-eeze. And, I was far from adept at sharing myself
along with that.

So what you get from that manuscript about my convict side,
if you read what I am now beginning to post in my “Prologue,” is vague and
insubstantial, at least about me.

I am, however, committed to rectifying this, believing it is
the honest, straightforward thing to do, but it will truly be a long labor of
love and some discipline.

For now, however, one thing is quite clear to me. On the
Survivor/Addict inventory questions, my original scores, when I first began my “adventure of a lifetime” (1973), tallied up to 125+!

As for me, no matter the face I presented back then, I was
as trapped in my survivor/addict, convict style, as if I had truly been behind
bars. I can say this now without reservation.

(Marty Groder, my psychiatrist mentor, said of me during
this era that I was so nice, I “could nice someone to death.” Obviously he could see straight through me.)

There were reasons, of course. There always are.

Scoring aside, in my case my survivor/addict side, as with most of us, started to develop in childhood.

I had actually been the prisoner
of a mentally ill and abusive mother from the time I was eight years old until a
sexually abusive husband took over when I was twenty, continuing imprisonment
until I was twenty-five.

But I’ve been free now for many years, my inner convict
replaced by the love and strength of a goddess; Amazon-type for sure. I call
her Goddess-zilla.

I wish the same in strength and love. And, if you are a male, be a gorgeous, full-spirited man; loving, kind, compassionate, strong and wise.